


Nine Nails in a Coffin

by Greenninjagal



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Drugs, Explosions, Gas fires, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Immortals, Luck in general, Lucky!Patton, M/M, Reporter!Roman, assassin!logan, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-11-12 04:36:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18003935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: Another breath.He angled his shot by instinct (having calculated the math far too many times at this point to need to do it again; he could see when he was off now, and he was never off). He wondered ideally if Patton was aware he was about to die: aware that someone wanted him dead, and badly.Logan wondered if anyone would ever miss him as much as the people in this world were going to miss Patton.***aka a record of the nine times Logan tried to kill the kindest person in the world and the reasons why he failed.





	1. Jump the Gun

Logan had to admit this was different than his usual job.

 

Usually he was adamant about never going back to places he had done previous jobs in, no matter how small the chance was that he’d be recognized. There was something—it didn’t make him quite uncomfortable—but there was something about being back after the unsavory business was over that made Logan’s skin feel tight. Rationally he knew this was impossible, but that didn’t stop him from scratching at his wrists as if he could loosen the skin like he loosened his tie.

 

Beyond that, this job had a payout thrice as much as his usual. Logan initially had been suspicious of that: more money meant one of two things—someone was very desperate and inexperienced, or there was an outstanding circumstance that was interfering with the accomplishment of the task. Perhaps there was a police guard waiting for him—Logan was not naive enough to think that they had no clue of his existence, and only a fool would dare the universe to pit his ego against the brute force of the FBI profilers.

 

Logan was not a fool, so before he had even set foot in the town, he had demanded to know what was so special about Patton Hart.

 

He hadn’t expected the answer.

 

The wind tousled his hair, bringing a chill to his cheeks. He checked his watch for the time yet again. A strange sort of impatience settled over him, and it wasn’t like Logan to be impatient. He was calm and critical and passive and above all else planning. He was meticulous with this work, putting together all the information he needed to know about the cases before he carried out his job.

 

He didn’t miss the city. There were always too many people, too many prying eyes, and eavesdropping ears for his liking. He didn’t like carrying his equipment on the buses or the trains or even taxis, didn’t like the idea of people being in his personal space when he trudged down the sidewalks, didn’t like the feel of the cameras on every corner.

 

Unfortunately, there weren’t many jobs out in the cabins in the far-off woods where the stars shown through the foliage and the nearest neighbor was still three miles away.

 

And Logan was aware that his weakness was one of his greatest strengths. His hatred of the city was always overruled by his incessant need to be the best. If he had grown up in a normal life, maybe he might have grown out of it by now, maybe he would be known as that one kid whose hand was the first raised, or who corrected the teacher, who made everyone groan whenever he opened his mouth.

 

Logan didn’t waste time regretfully mourning the child he might have been.

 

As it stood, his life had left him with a need to be better than anyone else, and to prove it. A reasonable side effect was that he was completely unable to back down from a challenge.

 

So, he was in the city once again, a mere year after his last job here, standing albeit impatiently in the skeletal structure of an apartment building that hadn’t been finished yet. Wind danced between the gaps where the windows would one day be, the gray tarps between the sections of the rooms fluttered. White chalk and limestone dust covered the floor which bothered Logan to no end. He had no doubt he’d be long gone before someone (if they ever did) noticed he was there, but it was distasteful.

 

Down below the plaza was frothing with people enjoying the chilly, yet bright afternoon. It was a hub of movement, drawing people to the fast food stands around the brick area, a fountain that danced with colored lights on Friday nights, and retail shops across the streets. From where he stood Logan could see all the way to the subway exit, where the next train would start spilling out the daily commuters any second.

 

(Logan had tried to narrow the timing to the very second, but the trains for some reason were never consistent daily)

 

He leaned forward ever so slightly, focusing his sight through his scope. His lips pressed together in anticipation. His watch chimed once, alerting him to the time. A beat later passengers started escaping from the clearly marked exit.

 

Logan didn’t have to wait long until he saw what he was looking for: the gray cat cardigan clad clout. His distasteful clothing aside, Logan had found Patton to be rather despicable. He was an unending well of optimism and cheerfulness with absolutely no regard for his own safety. He helped old women cross the street, offered coins to the kids in the plaza so they could make a wish in the fountain, offered whatever small dollars he had to the homeless on the street (whom he knew by name and stopped to talk to most days). His day job was that of a preschool teacher during the school year and a baker during the summer, with the weekends free to help in the soup kitchen and food banks respectively.

 

Logan had spent weeks watching him move about, gathering intel, trying to see what the others before him hadn’t. But the more he watched the more frustrated he became. Patton Hart was…good. Despicably good and pure and kind and all the things that Logan had long since deemed he himself was not.

 

It made absolutely no sense for him to be on this job either. Patton was careless and reckless and passionate about the strangest of things: given free reign and no supervision, he was likely to get himself killed from running in front of a car to save a baby bird in the street. Logan was not needed here.

 

And yet…

 

Logan tracked the path that Patton was walking breathing through his mouth. He allowed his lips to pull into a tight, firm smile. Of course, Patton would be skipping over the cracks in the stone. Logan waited his finger hovering over the trigger, counting the nanoseconds as he did. He watched the crowd too, looking for movement that would suggest a some unfortunate happenstance of someone walking in the way of his shot.

 

Another breath.

 

He angled his shot by instinct (having calculated the math far too many times at this point to need to do it again; he could see when he was off now, and he was never off). He wondered ideally if Patton was aware he was about to die: aware that someone wanted him dead, and badly.

 

Logan wondered if anyone would ever miss him as much as the people in this world were going to miss Patton.

 

Then his fingered tightened and the trigger squeezed and the bullet went flying, with barely a sound to be heard.

 

Logan pulled back from his station watching the chaos that was bound to happen: Patton hit the ground and several people ran towards him.

 

But they weren’t screaming. Why weren’t they screaming? Even from up here Logan should have heard them panicking, someone should have called the police by now, and the sirens should have screamed through the city. Logan should have been halfway down the stairs and well on his way out of town.

 

The crowd around Patton shifted just enough that Logan had to curse.

 

Because there the fool was, perfectly fine with a smile so big and bright Logan could see it from up here. He held up something in his hand—for an irrational second Logan was convinced it was the bullet and that Patton had mystically caught it before it had blown out the man’s medulla. But that wasn’t the case,  _ couldn’t  _ be the case. Patton was normal person, an average person.

 

Logan watched as he handed off whatever was in his hand to a kid, who raced with a couple others over the fountain and tossed the invisible object in the water spouts.

 

A coin, most likely a penny.

 

He quickly lined up another shot, but the crowd was too thick. Logan was more likely to hit a passerby than hit Patton, and he was not a fan of a riot that would be started if he open fired on the square.

 

Logan rolled his tongue over his teeth, with frustrated amusement. Patton seemed completely unaware that he had just nearly been killed and all that had saved him was a bit of luck. Logan didn’t miss. He never missed.

 

Logan guessed he would have to do this another way then.

 

He always did like a bit of a challenge.

 

It took him thirty seconds to pack his gear into his prepared bag and another one hundred forty to get down the building. He exited the construction site on the far exit, sticking to the shadows and walking with a purpose that discouraged people from stopping him or something worse like remembering him. He twisted his watch around his wrist stopping at the far end of the plaza where Patton would inevitably walk by once, he was done talking to the homeless veteran who had the dog about joining him at the soup kitchen on Sunday. Logan leaned back against the brick building, casually reaching in his jacket pocket for the 45 Glock.

 

Logan was by no means someone who liked to get up close and personal with his targets. He preferred the distance shot, with ample time to remove all traces of his existence in the area like a ghost. Cornered people who knew they were on death’s doorstep tended to be so much more….emotional. As such they did unpredictable things in desperation, things Logan couldn’t account for or counter. He had learned his lesson after the first two times: keep the distance, keep them naive.

 

He waited patiently for Patton to come, so he could end this and leave and never come back.

He did not expect someone else to come hurling around the corner seconds before Patton was to come—much less crash head first into him. Logan spit out a curse toppling to the ground and rolling over his bag full of weapons. His Glock spun out of his hand and his glasses disappeared into the blurry other world.

 

“Oh fuck,” A voice said originating from a black and indigo mass. “I’m so sorry—"

 

It cut off as suddenly as it had come. Logan frantically grabbed around for where his glasses could possibly have ended up.  _ This was the worst possible moment for this to happen. He had things to do! And here he was completely defenseless on the ground like some joke of a cartoon character-- _

 

“Oh dear!” Another voice popped up, “Here you are, Kiddo!”

 

Logan blinked twice as his glasses were returned to his hands and his vision was restored from the blurry chaos to the stiff order of the natural world. The momentary panic had barely faded from his mind before he realized exactly who was offering him a hand to get up.

 

Logan felt as if someone had dumped him into an ice bath without warning. His chest frozen, his mind refused to string together his list of priorities, his own body betrayed him allowing him to remain paralyzed at the site of Patton Hart smiling down at him in that ridiculous cat hoodie.

 

“You had quite the spill there, kiddo!” The other man said joyously. “Are you alright?”

 

Logan’s jaw creaked as he worked to move it, “Fine.”

 

This was his chance: to kill the fool and get away and leave. It would be so easy a simple quick squeeze of the trigger. Patton would be dead before he hit the ground. Logan would be gone before anyone could react.

 

_ Where was his Glock? _

 

That was the moment when Logan saw exactly who it was that had run into.

 

Logan doesn’t miss. He  _ doesn’t. _ He’s notorious for his impeccable aim, his ability to mathematically calculate the wind direction, the altitude, the speed of movement of the target all in the matter of seconds. He’s got a perfect record and its longer than number of zeroes on the end of this job. What happened with Patton was a complete fluke.

 

_ So why is he staring at the face of the man he murdered one year ago. _

 

And there was no denying it: Logan had a near perfect memory of every person he had ever taken out. He clearly remembered the chill that had gone through him when Virgil Storm looked up in the middle of that same plaza one year ago as if he could see— _ really see— _ Logan from all the way down there. Virgil had stopped the second Logan had pulled the trigger, and Logan remembered perfectly clear the vision of the purple clad young adult falling to the ground in a splattering of red matter.

 

He had shot Virgil Storm and had killed him.

 

He had gotten paid for it and never heard about it again.

 

From the look on Virgil’s face he knew it too.

 

“Everything okay there?” Patton asked again, “Do you need me to get you something? Ice? I know the owner of that café around the corner—”

 

“Pat!” Virgil cut him off, “It’s time to go!”

 

“Wha—”

 

“Things to do! People to greet!” Virgil shoved Patton from behind, pushing him well out of Logan’s reach. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Logan. He  _ knew. _ Logan wasn’t sure why that seemed to terrify him.

 

It didn’t make sense. Logan’s brain tried to come to a conclusion: why Virgil was here, alive, why he had never heard that he had failed, why no one had ever demanded that be fixed, why Virgil even recognized him. He came up blank.

 

“It was good to meet you!” Patton yelled over his shoulder.

 

Logan did not go after either of them for a full minute. He sat on the ground desperately grabbing for a bit of sanity to anchor him here. Oblivious citizens walked around him talking on the phones, chatting with each other, checking their watches. Logan didn’t see his gun anywhere.

 

He slowly crawled to his feet, using the brick wall to steady himself when he swayed dangerously.

 

He was the best. He didn’t ever miss.

 

If anyone found out about this his perfect record would be forever stained. He refused to let that happen, refused to let his reputation be tarnished by a boy in a purple sweatshirt and another who taught preschoolers for a living. Logan had grown up learning all the basics to killing people, his family had been assassins and hitmen since they had first been established. Logan was the product of the two most legendary killers in the world.

 

So, there was only one thing he could do: kill both Patton Hart and Virgil Storm before anyone found out about this unfortunate set back.

 

Yes, that sounded adequate. Logan reached up, adjusted his tie, and started planning the next of his multiple attempts---

 

****

 

“Wait, wait, wait!” The man reached across the table and paused the audio recording, “Are you seriously telling me that Logan Codex attempted to kill Patton Hart  _ eight _ different times?”

 

Roman blinked up at the man surprised, “Nine, actually. Which you would know if you let me finish—”

 

“ _ Nine fucking times? _ ”

 

“Hey, watch the language there, buddy.” Roman waved a hand good naturedly for a man who was at the other end of an interrogation table. He appeared to be more at ease than anyone else in the entire building: slumped shoulders, feet on the table, and hands that danced while he talked. He was smirking in a smug sort of way that only reporters ever seemed to have.

 

“Tell me again how you came to be aware of this, Mr. Prince.”

 

Roman leaned back on the two feet of his chair, “I thought I already told you this, Detective. That weekend was the opening for Storytime."

 

The Detective stared at him until Roman gave another huff.

 

"Storytime! You know, the famous play starring Thomas Sanders? I was sent by my company to cover the premier.”

 

“Yeah, but how did you get involved with the Codex and Hart Business?”

 

Roman wrinkled his nose, “I was telling a story, you know.”

 

“I don’t have time for a story, Prince.” The Detective snarled, “I need the answers now.”

 

“You can’t possibly hope to understand the answers without listening to the story.” Roman snorted, almost offended at the mere suggestion. “Nothing is ever as it seems!”

 

“Cut the bullshit and tell me what happened.”

 

Roman laughed, and it filled the room with an unpleasant feeling. “Oh, but Detective!” He said carting a hand through his bangs, “Where’s the fun in that?”


	2. Like a House Afire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In roughly nine hours when Virgil and Patton arrived back here, they’d turn on the lights, and everything would explode. No more Patton, no more Virgil, and Logan would be trillions of dollars richer.
> 
> He reached down to grab his bag right as the dog jumped over it and gave another delighted bark. It’s pink tongue lolled out of its mouth and it stared at Logan with deep warm eyes.
> 
> Was he seriously going to kill a dog?
> 
> Logan hesitated.

The most distressing thing about Patton having walked away that day alive was that Logan had to spend and extra few days in the city. His entire schedule had to be rearranged because of it: bus tickets cancelled, money withdrawn from his account to pay for the extra nights in the hotel he hadn’t been planning on coming back to, a redraft of his materials, and too many hours of planning straight.

 

With Virgil Storm added into the mix, with Virgil Storm recognizing Logan, things were...complicated. Logan felt that the turn of events was distasteful but he had no faulty notions that he couldn’t surmount them. He was, after all, the best assassin money could buy. He had surpassed both his parents and painted his own reputation from the spilt blood of his own conquerings. 

 

After he died, however and whenever that was, Logan’s name would be remembered,  _ revered, haunted.  _ His name would be whispered between parents and their kids as an incentive for them to be good, a taboo between business partners that made the air tense in meetings, an icon for other people in his line of work. 

 

He had worked so hard for this, too hard for it to all go to waste now.

 

So he watched and he waited. Like a snake in the grass.

 

He had known a little of Patton’s daily schedule before his first attempt at killing the man. He was simple, too simple, in Logan’s opinion. His routine offered nothing of excitement, nothing of value: He left his apartment around six in the morning, alternating between rushing because he was late and dancing down the hall because he was early with no in between. He said good morning to every person he saw on the street--including Logan several times when his preferred surveillance spot at the coffee shop near the apartments intercepted with Patton’s path on his way to the subway. He worked for a preschool on the other side of town, and spent all day with routy little kids  _ willingly.  _

 

Logan thought it was a waste. Children were nothing short of a headache and financial burden. Kids, normal kids, spent their days fighting and yelling and crying and screaming. They got sick or did stupid things that would inevitably end up with them bleeding and a trip to the emergency room. There was no pay off for the parents in most cases--with Logan being one of the rare few who had amassed a profit in his career to have paid back every cent his parents had originally paid to bring him into this world, teach him the tool he needed to survive it, and then the ones needed to overcome it. 

 

He remembered the swell of relief in his chest when he had sent the final payment to them, when he had reached into his pocket and removed the paper his father had inscribed the cost on and finally,  _ finally,  _ watched the numbers hit zero.

 

Of course, Logan still owed a monthly amount to his parents, after all of it. Because they had brought him into the world and raised him. He was their investment and it was only right that he owed them portions of whatever he made from his kills.

 

Sometimes Logan wondered why they had bothered ever giving birth to him. Had Logan any other attitude, he might have grown up to be more trouble than he was figuratively worth. What would they have done if he had refused to take up the family business? If he had decided to do something else with his life, such as work in a preschool teaching snot-nosed brats basic colors?

 

Logan wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

 

He had a week to get this job done, specified by the unknown customer. Patton Hart had to be dead this week, or the payment Logan was waiting on would be nullified. Unfortunately for him, the construction site he had chosen to shoot from was being worked on the rest of the week and therefore was compromised. He didn’t have enough time to pick and secure another location with a quick and easy exit.

 

But luckily Logan’s parents knew what they were doing when they trained him to the best killer in the world. If a gunshot to the neck, heart, and head, wasn’t possible, Logan had other methods of killing people from a distance.

 

After his first attempt at exterminating the pest known as Patton Hart, Logan resolved himself to keep a closer watch on the male. And his friends. Specifically, Virgil Storm. For the life of himself Logan could figure out how he missed such an important factor in the game. Virgil was by Patton’s side constantly, like a shadow to Patton’s peppy optimism. Virgil was the hand that pulled Patton back before he blindly walked into traffic, the muscle that stood behind Patton with a threatening glare to anyone who got too close, the common sense that prevented Patton was stalling too long in crowded areas.

 

He was hypervigilant when they were out together, which Logan had realized was all the time now. Virgil had spotted him twice from a distance and had taken Patton by the hand and disappeared in a crowd.

 

Logan found it interesting that Virgil hadn’t told Patton the truth. Part of him suggested that maybe Virgil  _ didn’t  _ know Logan had been trying to kill the two of them, but at the same time it also seemed illogical. The way that Virgil had looked at him was  _ too  _ terrified for a normal person. He had to know what Logan was, one way or another.

 

(Which was another series of problems. How did he know? Who told him?  _ How did he survive to be told?  _ Logan wasn’t looking forward to the process of finding out.) 

 

He liked the challenge it brought about, however. This wasn’t like the rest of his jobs where no one knew he was coming. Virgil’s awareness of his presence made it almost like a game: Could Logan outsmart the purple haired man and claim his life a second time?

 

The answer was yes, of course. Because Logan was the smartest person he knew, trained in the art of death bringing, while Virgil was (at least a year ago at the time of his previous death) an art school dropout who survived by drawing comics for the weekly newspaper and running an online art blog that criticized the nearby galleries.

 

With a quick check online, Logan confirmed that Virgil still kept up with both of his jobs. And, most frustratingly, there hadn’t seemed to be a break at all. Logan had gotten paid on a Friday for the kill of Virgil Storm, and the next day Virgil Storm’s blog had a new post. The quality, the diction, everything about that post was the same as the previous ones. Logan didn’t know how but Virgil had made that post while his grey matter was being scrubbed off the stone tiles of the public fountain square.

 

Logan didn’t believe in ghost stories. 

 

Once he had begun looking for Patton  _ and  _ Virgil, he had noticed all the signs of Patton having a roommate, housemate--whatever Virgil was to him (Was it possible Patton was in a courtship with Virgil? There was nothing in his file about that! According to his employee contract at the preschool where he taught, he was unmarried, but that didn’t mean that Patton wasn’t seeking intimacy with the other man).

 

Logan wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much.

 

It wasn’t like he had never killed a spouse before. Half of the time he was being paid to take out one half was a cheating parting because high paying customers don’t like to be blackmailed, or jealousy had manifested in the cruelest of outcomes. It seemed that though Logan’s parents might have done a few things wrong when raising him, they at least taught him well enough to know communication was a key factor in any business arrangement.

 

Patton talked about Virgil to the people he saw everyday, and they noticed when Virgil wasn’t by his side. He bought groceries for an extra person, the TV played loudly when Patton wasn’t home, and Virgil owned a purple Mongoose BMX bike that was chained to the bike rack outside their building three different ways.

 

Logan assumed his sloppy investigation work was purely because Virgil rarely left the house--a status that immediately changed after they had come face-to-face that fateful day. Now Virgil was the first to leave the house, first to enter the Subway, and leave the subway, and enter the house. Logan had even watched him snatch a mailed package out of Patton’s hands and throw it out the window as if it were some type of bomb. Patton had scolded him for nearly ruining the new books he had ordered for his preschool class.

 

So there would be no sneaking of a bomb into the house, not that Logan was that savage. Bombs were messy and difficult to handle in the the steadiest of hands. They were better for huge collateral damage projects but in this case he didn’t want to kill the who building, he just wanted to get rid of one room.

 

He took up a place at a nearby cafe, ordered a coffee, and pulled out his book. He sat comfortably in the metal chair hoarding two cups of coffee black, wishing that he was anywhere but in the city again. The skin under his wrist watch itched uncomfortably as the cafe filled with other early risers. Too many people, too early in the day, too close together. His preferred spot in the cafe had been taken up by a rather distressed college student with oversized headphones so Logan was forced to change seats: the only thing separating him and the mindless pedestrians was a black iron fence bolted into the sidewalk covered in a garland of fake spring flowers whose petals occasionally were torn off in the winter winds.

 

His back was to the apartment where Virgil and Patton lived, but he didn’t fret it; there was less of a chance of Virgil recognizing the back of his head. Also Patton’s daily walk to the subway led him right by this very seat. It was impossible to miss him, seeing as whenever he walked anywhere he made a point to hollar a greeting to the anyone and everyone: the workers in the cafe, the underpaid interns on their first coffee run of the day, the street performers who were taking up too much of the sidewalk with their theatrics. Patton knew most of them by name, which Logan had to admit was slightly impressive. Logan had spent years training his mind to remember finer details, but Patton seemed to do it effortlessly.

 

He seemed to do most things effortlessly. Effortlessly kind, effortlessly thoughtful, effortlessly annoying as hell--did he know his voice carried as far as it did with every greeting? Did he care? Logan was sure if he had been a normal businessman, he wouldn’t have the ability to come out here daily if it meant hearing the same conversation every single day. He had only been here three times and Logan was counting down the seconds until he could leave.

 

Oh, the thought of his bus ticket out of the city tonight made his chest ache. Oh, he could spend a whole week off in the woods somewhere, far beyond the reaches of cell service and miles away from other humans. He could listen to the wilderness, and watch the stars, and draw the plant life without any deadline to be met.

 

He just had to take care of one last thing.

 

Patton left his building on time today, dressed in a pastel blue polo, tailored pants, and that gray cardigan that he tied unprofessionally over his shoulders. He had an pink cherry blossom umbrella with him, although Logan noted that the forecast showed no sign of any rain today. His loud laugh was tell-tale of his approaching. 

  
  
  


“Good Morning, Valorie!” Patton’s voice yelled from just a few feet behind Logan, nearly startling him into spilling his mug of coffee. Dear Newton, why was he so  _ loud _ ?

 

“Oh!” Patton said, his shadow falling right over Logan’s shoulder, “Sorry there, kiddo!”

 

Logan jerked his head up to see that Patton was indeed talking to him (and internally cursed the college student who had stolen his usual spot). 

 

“I didn’t mean to startle you!” The freckled man smiled that type of toothy grin that should have come with a warning sign. He was a personification of the sun come down to earth, and it was far too early to be dealing with that even if he weren’t the target Logan was going to kill.

 

“What’s your book about?”

 

Logan blinked. “Pardon?”

 

Logan had read the same forty pages in his book three times and still hadn’t retained any of it. Surely at one point it had caught his eye enough for him to want to purchase it. When had that been again? One year ago? Two? Logan’s job kept him mobile and busy and left very little time for him to just sit around an do pleasure reading.

 

“I- uh--” He stuttered uncharacteristically, when he realized that Patton was still looking for an answer to his question.

 

Patton leaned on the iron fence that just barely separated them, his umbrella resting on his shoulder with the straps to his school bag. “You look familiar…” Patton snapped his fingers and brighten  _ more. _ “Oh! You’re the one Virgil stumbled into yesterday, poor kiddo! I didn’t get much a of a chance to apologize to you!”

 

Logan’s eyes flickered to his placemat where his complimentary butterknife was positioned perfectly parallel to his fork. It would take a significant amount of force to break skin with that type of weapon, more than he could get in such a public place with a fence dividing them. His fingers tightened around his mug.

 

Patton of course, had absolutely not way of knowing exactly what Logan was thinking about. He cheerfully took up the conversation despite Logan’s lack of appropriate responses. “I’m Patton! Are you new to town? I can show you around later if you are! I know all the--”

 

“Patton!” Virgil’s unabashedly horrified tone sliced through the air before Patton could finish. Seconds later the other man can’t thundering up to them, yanking Patton back from the fence by his waist. “Patton! The subway! Work! You’re going to be late!”

 

Logan straightened in his seat, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge at the sudden appearance of Patton’s glorified shadow. He could feel his skin tighten at the proximity of them to each other, the air tensing with an invisible electrical storm when they made eye contact. 

 

“Don’t be silly, Virgil!” Patton laughed, “We have plenty of time!”

 

“Nope!” Virgil said, dragging him further away, this time by his shoulders so he couldn’t fight it even if he was actively trying, “You didn’t take anything from him right? He didn’t offer anything?” 

 

“You’re taking this stranger danger thing a bit far, V!” Patton said pleasantly. “We were just talking!” He tried to turn to face Logan and but Virgil held fast and pushed him forward.

 

Virgil hissed like that was worse than if Logan had given him a stick of dynamite to hold. Part of him was righteously offended. He wasn’t some amateur serial killer who craved the attention and fear of those around him: Logan had  _ class. _ If he was going to poison Patton he most certainly wasn’t going to do it right there in the middle a throng of closely watching cafe customers who could identify him later.

 

Logan sipped his coffee watching the two of them scurry down the street, Patton’s daily greetings ringing over the lull of traffic and conversation. He pressed his glass up the bridge of his nose with a flicker of a smile on the corner of his lips when he could no longer see or hear either of them. He tossed his bookmark in the page he was on and waved to the waitress impatiently.

 

It appeared that he wouldn’t finish his book on this job either. Such a shame.

 

Once he had paid for his coffee-- in exact cash with an average tip for the waitress Valorie who was nothing but polite-- Logan took a deep breath and scooped up his bag. He hesitated at the opening to the cafe, wincing at the flow of people moving one way or another. In an ideal world Logan figured he’d have a physical bubble surrounding him that kept everyone else at least three feet away from him. His knuckles tightened on the strap of his bag and he launched himself into the foot traffic. 

 

Several minutes later he peeled out of it again to carefully climb the steps to the apartment building where Patton and Virgil lived. Virgil’s bike was sitting outside, triple chained, and no helmet in sight. Logan considered the pros and cons of slashing the tires, but ultimately decided it was a spiteful thing.

 

He couldn’t risk Virgil noticing it before they entered their apartment and pulling some delaying act. In addition he didn’t want to draw any new attention to them and the mysterious circumstances of their deaths before Logan was out of the city.

 

The building had a gated door that prevented just anyone from walking up and murdering the tenants. Guests were supposed to ring a buzzer and the people living there could allow them in. The plates were grungy and dirty and most of them missing as a sign that either people didn’t live there or maintenance was unacceptably poor. Logan didn’t think he could ever live in a place live this.

 

The mundaneness alone would kill him. Not to mention the  _ dirt _ .

 

He plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to press the buzzer for one of the names long faded but still readable. For a long moment Logan stood there his insides twisting unpleasantly in a way he hated. 

 

_ “H-hello?” _

 

Logan allowed himself a flicker of a smile, “Salutations! Mrs. Patty! It’s Logan! I live a floor down from you and I appear to have locked myself out again.”

 

_ “I’m sorry, who?” _

 

“Logan, Ma’am.” Logan said, “I was just in such a rush to get out that I forgot my keys--”

 

_ “Oh are you that boy that lives with Patton?”  _

 

Logan hesitated for less than a second, “Yes Ma’am!”

 

_ “Oh, none of that Ma’am stuff young man! You go on up! Tell Patton thank you for that pie recipe. It worked wonderfully!”  _

 

The buzzer beeped one last time and gated door unlocked. Logan wondered if his job had ever really been hard, or if he had just gotten better at doing it. Or perhaps people hadn’t been taught to be as untrusting as Logan had been.

 

According to the personal file Logan had received along with the assignment, Patton lived on the second floor, although since it had no mention of Virgil in it Logan was inclined to double check his information. He didn’t need to, once he had skirted up the creaking wooden stairs and slipped down the hall, he found Patton’s door very easily.

 

There was a welcome mat outside of it that read “Wipe Your Paws!” with a cartoon of a dog wagging its tail. The door itself was decorated with easy peel off stickers of cats and dogs and a few birds. Only someone as childish as Patton would have his door decorated in such a sophomoric manner.

 

Logan glanced down the hall, making sure there were no lingering eyes who could identify him to the authorities, before he swiped his lockpick set from the side pocket of his bag. Memories of past jobs filtered through his head as he inserted his tools. It took him longer than he could have liked--because Logan was good at many things but not everything-- but he managed to set the pins before anyone came wandering down the hall. The lock popped open and Logan let himself into Patton’s apartment.

 

It wasn’t the worst place Logan had ever been in, and truthfully it was better than Logan’s current hotel. The curtains were drawn back and sunlight filtered into the living room through light crystals that colored the walls in rainbows. There was a couch with neatly folded handmade quilts tossed over the back and several pillows fluffed on the seats. The TV was off but the coffee table was littered with stacks of DVDs for TV shows that Logan had caught only bits and fragments of.

 

Before Logan could see much more than that, another sound caught his attention: a yelp. Logan tensed, one hand on the door knob, the other flexing his fingers for a potential palm attack should he need it. Logan had already missed noting that Virgil lived with Patton, but the idea that there was  _ another  _ person who lived there? It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge, his throat dry up and his stomach clench in an uneasy mass. He was  _ supposed  _ to be the best. He was the best!

 

There was another yelp, and then Logan realized it was far worse than another person living in the apartment with Virgil and Patton. Nails danced on the wooden floor, followed by a bark.

 

Patton had a dog.

 

And it was small and fast and  _ loud _ .

 

Logan didn’t know a lot about dogs--practically nothing if he was being honest. But he knew that Patton was allergic to them and there shouldn’t have been one in the apartment to begin with! It was the tiniest thing Logan had ever witness and it raced around Logan’s legs in a blur of tan and white occasionally leaping up with its forepaws only to barely catch Logan’s knees.

 

_ What was he supposed to do with a Dog?? _

 

It wasn’t growling, which Logan supposed was a good thing. It didn’t seem to think he was a threat. Perhaps it believed he was some type of new friend? Logan didn’t believe in luck, but he thought it might be rather good fortune that it wasn’t trying to bite him.

 

He offered it a cautious hand, sniffing distastefully when the animal slobbered all over his hand. He cursed under his breath, wiping it off as fast as he could, because, for lack of a better term,  _ “ewwww!”.  _ Of course, it left discolored streaks on his dress pants which only serve to sour his mood more.

 

The animal barked again when Logan brushed it off and strolled down the hall to do what he needed to do.

 

It only took him a moment to find the kitchen, dancing between the three rooms that connected to the living area: He paused long enough to ensure the window in the room was closed _tightly,_ and then peeked into Patton’s room which left the door open and a tiny bed next to his neatly made bed. The other door was closed, but Logan opened it just enough to see the purple mess of a bedspread and assumed it was Virgil’s. The kitchen was tidy, for the most part. A few dishes in the sink, a loaf of bread on the counter, piles of paper recipes taped on the fridge and a coffee pot with an inch of coffee left in it, still slightly warm. Several coffee mugs with the titles “#1 DAD!” and “Dunder Mifflin, Inc” sat around the machine like some sort of shrine to caffeine.

 

Logan narrowly avoided stepping on the dog as he made his way to the stove. He hissed at the animal, but it merely yelped again and splayed on the ground as if it were waiting for something. It jumped up once again when Logan moved past it with a whine. The assassin ignored it.

 

Logan had done his research on Patton’s building. For example, he had noticed that the building he had chosen to live in used gas stoves. Which wasn’t an issue by itself, because many places used gas stoves. However, theoretically, if there was a mishap with the production of the gas stove, and it just so happened that the Flame Failure Device-- which stopped the build up of the flammable gases-- was damaged...well, it wouldn’t be completely obvious at first glance upon entering the apartment. And, theoretically, if the occupants of the apartment were not aware of the build up of said flammable gases as they barely had any scent, even the flick of a light switch would be enough to, theoretically blow up an entire apartment.

 

_ Completely theoretically of course _ , Logan thought as he pulled his switchblade from his bag and proceeded to take apart the gas stove. It took him a little more than thirty minutes to find the Flame Failure Device and cut through it, and slightly longer to remember how to put a stove back together. All the while the dog danced around him, rubbing up on his legs with its pale fur that undoubtedly would ruin Logan’s pants.

 

He tried to shoo it away but every time the dog just sprawled on the wooden floor with its stomach open legs curled at strange angles. Logan wasn’t sure what it wanted at all, and it was slightly frustrating. One thing he didn’t have as a child, was a pet. Not that he had ever wanted one. They were more work than they were worth, and merely served to take up time and energy and money that Logan didn’t have to waste.

 

He placed the frame back on the stove and pressed until it clicked back into place. Then he turned around and eyed the dimensions of the room, and the connecting living room. After a second he slipped from the kitchen and into Patton’s room. He grabbed two of the cardigans from the closest, shut the door to the room and wedged the fabrics under the door frame. It wouldn’t stop the gases from slipping through, but it would slow it enough for most of them to congregate in the kitchen and living room. He turned off all the lights, and then he checked that window again. Then he turned on all four burners and watched as no flame appeared. 

 

In roughly nine hours when Virgil and Patton arrived back here, they’d turn on the lights, and everything would explode. No more Patton, no more Virgil, and Logan would be trillions of dollars richer.

 

He reached down to grab his bag right as the dog jumped over it and gave another delighted bark. It’s pink tongue lolled out of its mouth and it stared at Logan with deep warm eyes.

 

Was he seriously going to kill a dog?

 

Logan hesitated.  _ Was he? _

 

He was by no means a good person. He had killed enough people that the idea of death no longer bothered him. But the death of this...animal? It was stupid, incredibly stupid, considering that Logan was a stranger who had entered it’s house and instead of alerting anyone it had merely decided to roll around on the floor and slobber on Logan’s shoes. It wasn’t aware that Logan had created this elaborate scheme to kill its owner and, by extension it.

 

Because there was no way Logan could take it. What would he even do with a dog? He didn’t even like pets! 

 

...he could take it to the closest animal center right? If he took off the collar and claimed he found it in the streets, then no one would question it. Someone else might come along and see this stupid animal and it would get adopted to a happy family. 

 

What was he thinking? That was a waste of his time and energy. He had things to do! Like figure out what cabin in the woods he wanted to vacation in once he left the city and what job he would pick after he got back from his vacation.

 

The dog walked him to the door, and gave a little whine when Logan told it to stay. Logan closed the door behind him.

 

He made it to the bottom of the stairs before he identified the knot in his stomach as being  _ guilt.  _ He hadn’t felt that in a very long time. He growled at nothing and stormed back up the stairs cursing Patton in every language he knew.

 

He was a murderer, an assassin, the best money could buy! He stuffed the pastel purple collar in his bag, and slammed the door to the apartment closed. He was supposed to be heartless.

 

He dropped the dog off at the animal shelter and was gone before the employee could ask him any more than “who’s this little guy?” in the most obnoxious voice Logan had ever heard.

 

Logan went back to the cafe, bought himself lunch, and started researching cabins in the woods far,  _ far  _ away from the city.

 

*****

 

Roman rapped his knuckles on the table, “I assume you know what happened next?”

 

The detective sighed deeply, “Why don’t you enlighten me, anyway.”

 

The reporter leaned forward in his chair lowering his voice as if this was some type of secret, “Well Logan can predict a lot of things, but he had no way of knowing that the exterminator would be coming through the building that day on account of a complaint several months prior. He shows up at the door at the same time as Patton and Virgil are coming back, a towering, huge man. And by a stroke of luck, Patton lets him enter his apartment first. 

 

“The man flicks on the light switch on the entire apartment goes up in flames. The explosion knocks the man backwards into the other two and crushes them against the opposite wall. Two of Patton’s ribs break, and Virgil miraculously survives uninjured enough to call for an ambulance. The exterminator was dead before they arrived on the scene.” Roman eyes darken.

 

“So,” Roman says after another beat, “Logan fails a second time.”

 

The detective thinks it over for a second, before nodding, “Alright, fine, assume I believe all of this.” He waves a hand, “What happens next? Hart was in the hospital for the entire next day. There was no way Codex could have slipped through security there.”

 

Roman laughed unkindly, “My dear detective, surely you don’t really believe that. The man calculated the exact time that it would take volatile gases to fill an apartment and explode. Do you really think your dime-a-dozen cops would have been a challenge for him?”

 

The other man hesitates.

 

Roman gives him a smug look, “Now can I continue my story? I like this next part.”

 

“Why is that?”

 

“Because I accidentally save Patton from dying it in.”


	3. Written in a Poison Pen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You alright, buddy?” The man's eyebrows furrowed, “I got an insurance policy! You can't sue-”
> 
> “Take me,” Logan ordered, “to the hospital. Do not make me repeat myself.”

By the time Logan realized that Patton and Virgil were still alive, he was fifteen minutes from the airport on the opposite side of the city, his two bags packed neatly, and his much anticipated cabin in the woods rented for the following week. It was only thanks to his obsessive triple checking of the online news website that he managed to catch the inconceivable announcement before he got out of the taxi.

 

Logan wasn't quite sure he had ever been as mad as he was in that moment, as his eyes skimmed the short article about the faulty gasmain and the terrible, awful accident that had occurred earlier that afternoon. It had resulted in the death of an exterminator, and the hospitalization of two residents. The (brilliant, amazing, talented) author promised more when they had sufficient details. Logan wanted to throw his phone-- no actually he wanted to take his phone and shove it down Patton Hart's throat and watch him struggle to breathe around it. 

 

Logan had plans! He had things to do! Why couldn't the preschool teacher and his roommate accept that and die? 

 

Logan rapped on the taxi window that divide the driver from himself. His knuckles stung from the impact. The car jerked.

 

“How far is the hospital from here?” Logan asked shortly.

 

The driver, a man in his late forties with a burlap cap and a scruffy attempt at a goatee, glanced at him in the rearview mirror, “Ya gotta be specific, buddy. Which Hospital?”

 

The author of the article covering the apartment explosion hadn't said which one the victims were taken too. Logan gritted his teeth. “Whichever is the closest from here.”

 

“You alright, buddy?” The man's eyebrows furrowed, “I got an insurance policy! You can't sue-”

 

“Take me,” Logan ordered, “to the hospital. Do not make me repeat myself.”

 

The man nodded hurriedly and flicked on his blinker. He got off on the next exit and Logan leaned back in the seat scowling at his phone until his eyes crossed. The leather of the seat felt sticky and dirty, and Logan scratched at his wrist as if he could pull the irritating feeling from his veins once and for all. His phone screen went dark, leaving him glaring at his own reflection: his hair swept neatly back, his collar even on both sides with his tie perfectly centered. To the driver, he must have looked like a young CEO or businessman.

 

It was ironic, Logan supposed, that the man driving him to the hospital had no idea that Logan was plotting to murder someone as he sat there.

 

From a young age Logan had taught himself the best way to kill someone. He had grown up with people talking about it, casually, almost comically. His father liked to break into houses and wait with a gun, liked when his prey saw him, and loved watching the fear in his victims eyes when their life leaks away. He gathered jobs the way Logan had heard other fathers gathered sport merchandise: as many as he could handle at a time and then some. His mother preferred the opposite: she delighted in the long game, in teasing and pulling and persuading. She spent months unraveling her marks, worming her way into their lives and then when it was no longer fun, she ended it, eliminated the mark, and disappeared completely. She called herself the smartest person in the room and when Logan was talking to her via a phone call from across the country, Logan believed her.

 

But when they were in the same house, Logan knew the difference. His mother was smart and creative--Logan took those traits and combined it with his father’s short temper and preference for guns. He didn’t have to know his mark personally to kill them, didn’t have to stand over their bodies and watch the light in their eyes fade because the compulsion ruled his actions.

 

Logan was  _ more efficient  _ without the unnecessary step that held both his parents. He was a better ghost story, a nightmare. He was the bullet one never saw coming and never saw leaving.

 

So why did Logan suddenly feel the need to storm Patton Hart’s hospital room and choke the life out of him with his own hands? 

 

He flexed his fingers on his left hand, noting the curious shaking in them. It seemed that his routine of keeping his distance wasn’t going to work. If he wasn’t careful whatever police were in the city, or the FBI, or whoever tried to prevent his line of work, would catch on to him. Logan didn’t like the idea that he get sloppy, didn’t like the idea that someone could catch him on camera, as a physical proof he existed. 

 

It takes them ten minutes to get to the nearest hospital. Each minute settles in Logan’s spine, winding him up until his entire body was shaking with anger. His temples ached but he couldn’t make his jaw unclench. He tossed exact change to the driver, gathered both his bags, and flung himself out of the taxi with just enough control to avoid taking out a woman talking on her phone. 

 

The driver rolled down his window, “Hey, man--”

 

Logan cut him down with a glare.

 

“I mean, S-sir!” The driver corrected himself, “Are you going to be back? I can--”

 

“If I need a taxi I will call another one.” Logan said shortly. He turned away. 

 

He hooked his duffle over his shoulder, careful of his rifle that was positioned safely between layers of his dark polos and dress pants. Logan had spent far too long trying to pack everything back into his perfect system, the system he had held together for years, before he remembered he was missing his Glock still. Whatever had happened to it, between Logan ready to shoot Patton, and Logan hitting the ground when Virgil ran into him-- he had lost the gun. It was technically unregistered, and untraceable, and certainly didn’t lead back to Logan in anyway. But there was a slim barely noticeable empty space where his gun should have been and it wasn’t there. Somehow that made the whole bag feel lighter-- too light. Like if Logan moved to fast the bag would go flying off his shoulder.

 

It was irrational to blame that on Patton and Virgil, and it was likely Logan’s own fault for the whole thing, his own gross misattention causing him to lose a very valuable piece of equipment. However Logan thought he really didn’t care. If Patton had just allowed himself to be shot the first time Logan wouldn’t have even needed to pull out his Glock. If Virgil had died and stayed dead the first time around then he wouldn’t have been alive to run into Logan to knock his glasses off and distract him long enough to lose his gun.

 

Logan glanced at his watch, fighting the urge to tear into his veins and rip that annoying itch out of his skin. He would have to work fast--finding the hospital Patton and Virgil were at in less than an hour, bluffing his way inside (which would take only a few minutes), finding the room (slightly longer), and killing them (which would take anywhere from two minutes to fifteen depending on the extent of their injuries)-- if he wanted to catch his flight. But that wasn’t taking into account the travel time to make it back to the airport.

 

It was good practice to get to the airport three hours before a flight took off. Logan thought he could murder Patton Hart and Virgil Storm and get back to the airport with five minutes to spare. It would be cutting it close--closer than he wanted it to be. But he also wanted to prioritize the time he had rented his cabin for.

 

Logan strolled into the lobby of the Hospital, the scent of lemon cleaner and the steril appearance of the area settling the nerves in him. He always felt nostalgia when entering hospitals: they felt like his childhood home. The cleanliness, the quiet hush, the wide open front rooms with a lot of artificial light and the polished floors that Logan could see his reflection in. Even the more chaotic areas provided a slight correlation in Logan’s mind: the ER reminding him of all the times his parents had taken him out for practice late at night.

 

“What can I do for you, sir?” The receptionist asked with cherry blossom pink lips. Logan wasn’t stupid. He knew that she was sitting straighter than she was before he walked in, knew that her slowly blinking at him was supposed to be showing off her eyes, knew that her sudden need to curl her dark hair around her finger was a nervous tic. 

 

He gave her the fakest smile he’d ever had grace his face. Her face blushed so fast Logan worried that he was going to have to call a doctor for her.

 

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” He said, letting the smile drop to something more frantic, “I just received a call that my cousin was in an accident! I came as soon as I could but it did not occur to me to ask where he would be! It’s really irresponsible of me, but he just means so much to me and I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in pain--”

 

The girl’s-- because she must have been at least ten years younger than he was-- eyes widen with surprise and maybe a bit of horror. “Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry! What’s his name? I can tell you where he is!”

 

Logan told her the name of the man he was sent to kill and she tapped it into her computer like every second mattered. For a few tense moments Logan stood there one hand on the counter the other holding the straps to his bag. 

 

The receptionist frowned, “oh, uh,” she looked up at him, “It looks like he’s not at our facility. Are you sure you got a call from us?”

 

Logan faked his surprise, “There’s more than one hospital, here? I’m new to town. I-I didn’t--”

 

She took pity on the perception of him that he allowed her to see. She shuffled through papers behind the desk, and came back with a map of the city and a black pen. Logan listened intently while she described the --thankfully only-- two other hospitals and circled their locations on the map for him to find. Logan reached out to take the map from her, their hands brushing, and he swallowed a scream.

 

Her skin felt like rose thorns snagging on his fingertips and tearing pulsing gashes in his hand. Logan drew back quickly, probably too quickly. Her brow furrowed.

 

“Thank you,” Logan said, “You’ve been a massive help.”

He didn’t run out of the building. He wasn’t that type of person. But he could hear his heartbeat rising as he turned his back on the girl, his hand burning with the phantom of her touch. The map crinkled in his grip. 

 

He didn’t actually inhale fully until he was out of the building again, both his bags on the ground next to him as he leaned against a pillar on the smoking pavillion. The sun was hiding behind the distant buildings, and a chill had picked up the stale city smog. The cars that were so far away, the traffic suddenly seemed so long, the darkness too dark, and the air too dry. Logan pressed his body against the pillar, his pulsing palms dug into the white painted wood, his eyes screwed closed in an attempt to shut off his senses.

 

Then as suddenly as it had come, it left. Like a flip of a switch. The overwhelming incoherent screaming in his head silenced leaving absolutely nothing in its place but a numbness. Logan inhaled with with a sharp shuddering that he felt all over his chest and his neck. His jaw creaked with the force he used to clamp his scream down.

 

Logan exhaled. Then his knees gave out. He slid down the pillar and hit the ground right next to his bags.

 

He was shaking again. He stared at the hand he had brushed against the receptionist with and cursed himself for doing… doing whatever the hell that was. It wasn’t like she had cut him, bruised him-- it had barely been a tap of their fingers. But Logan could feel exactly where it had been down to the atoms. There was no mark, and yet it had made him run out of the building like some scolded dog with his tail between his legs. Logan didn’t think he could get more suspicious than that. 

 

He swallowed thickly, and clenched his hands into fists.

 

Fine, whatever. This job already was a mess. But it would be over soon. It would be over and Logan could go lick his wounds somewhere far away from other people where he’d never have to risk anyone brushing up against him.

 

He rolled his watch around his wrist to check his timetable. He had lost several more minutes than he intended to, but he could still make the flight. He nodded to himself and uncrumpled the map the receptionist had given him and smoothed it out on his knee. Assuming that she was correct in marking the other facilities Patton could have been taken to, Logan just had to identify the one closest to Patton’s apartment. 

 

Logan allowed a slight twitch of his lips. He stuffed the map in his pocket and gathered his two bags. He called the taxi company.

 

Soon this mess would be over. 

 

The last bits of the sun had drained from the sky by the time Logan’s second taxi pulled up to the hospital.

 

“Uh, sir,” The driver, whom Logan decided he liked more than the other one, squirmed in his seat, “You aware that there no vist hour now? No let you in.”

 

“I’m not going in.” He lied. “I’m driving my friend home in his car. His brother is ill. He’s inconsolable. Keep the change.”

 

Logan removed himself from the car and stared up at the building. The lobby was dark with only emergency lights on letting everyone know that the area was of limits until the morning again. He waved the taxi driver off as he took in the layout. Sure the normal hospital was closed now, but the ER was open all hours of the day. He just needed to get inside.

 

He stashed his bags under a bush, out of sight of anyone wondering by. Then Logan straightened his tie, adjusted his glasses and headed around the building keeping his head down and out of sight of any cameras watching the area.

 

For all intents and purposes, Logan walked right into the building. It was almost too easy, unfairly easy. Where was the challenge? Where was the nurse asking him what he was doing? Where was the sudden ambulance pulling in the yelling for all hands on deck?

 

Logan snagged a white coat off a hanger in the hall, smiled at the on-duty officer who was chatting up the ER receptionist, and walked right up to the computer to check where Patton Hart and Virgil Storm were without being acknowledged.

 

He wasn’t exactly thrilled to see the record either. It appeared that Patton had avoided even a major injury-- a measly two ribs broken and a sprained wrist. The doctors were prepared to release him early the next morning assuming that nothing turned up over night. Virgil Storm, however, wasn’t recorded at all. Which meant that he had already been discharged and Logan was going to have to track him down.

 

Logan cleared the search with slightly more force than he meant to. The receptionist glanced over at him, but the officer talking to her reached out placed his hand on hers. They both promptly forgot Logan existed. 

 

He swallowed his urge to roll his eyes and headed down the hall.

 

He could not  _ wait  _ to get out of the hospital, the city, the country. Away from all the stupid idiots in the world. He couldn’t wait to be somewhere quiet and calm and isolated. The more he thought about it, the more Patton Hart’s existence annoyed him. Like a thorn in his side, digging and prodding, and...and just existing!

 

Patton’s overall sweet personality had to be a lie. His innocence, his kindness, his smile-- all of is had to be a lie! After all, someone had gone to great lengths to hire  _ Logan  _ to kill him. Patton who taught tiny children for a living, who stopped to talk to the homeless on the street and gave away all his spare change, who remembered the names of every person he saw on his morning commute was somehow the same Patton who had ticked someone off so badly they requested the finest assassin they could get.

 

It made no sense. But then again Logan wasn't paid to determine if it made sense or not. He was paid to kill people. He was the executioner, not the jury. 

 

(Not that there was a jury either really. Logan supposed in his line of work things were unjust and unfair as they could get. Logan wasn't supposed to--  _ didn't-- _ care about the specifics.)

 

((He would just have to get use to the feeling of not knowing what Patton had done.))

 

Logan took a detour getting to the fourth floor (Which was reserved for those staying one-night according to the system). He slipped into the medicinal hall, where he passed by two more night nurses who were too engrossed in a quiet conversation to ask him what he was doing. It was strange was a white coat and a pair of glasses did for the perception of him.

 

In a few hours when they found two of their charges rightfully dead and they went back through the cameras they would see him breezing through their slim defence. By the time they realized the explosion in their apartment was planned, Patton would be dead.

 

The back office where the assortment of carefully counted drugs were was locked up tight. It was likely also enforced with strict locks that Logan by no means could kick in-- not that he was going to because it was near silent and he didn’t want to cause anyone any alarm yet. Logan slipped his second pair of lock picks from his sleeve and made short work of the lock while no one was around. 

 

Once inside he carefully closed the door behind him and set to work checking the inventory. It was meticulous, with a carefully counted supply of everything, which Logan applauded. Especially when it only took three minutes to find the drug he was looking for.

 

Logan wasn’t a doctor, but even he had educated himself on the most common drugs. His mother had been particularly fond of Ketamine, and thus Logan’s fingers set to work with the memory of her voice in his ear. 

 

It’s primary use was to facilitate general anesthesia during surgeries, but Logan had grown up knowing that it impaired motor functions and caused respiratory issues. And the difference between a safe dosage and an overdose was slight.

 

Once it was injected, there was five minutes before Logan would be certain that his victims would not be recovering. 

 

He flitted around the room to find a syringe, filled it with the clear liquid, and placed it in his pocket. 

 

Then with a weapon of mass destruction in his borrowed coat jacket he slipped from the medicinal room back into an empty, half lit hallway. His shoes made no noise on the polished tile floor. Logan  _ glided  _ towards the room where Patton would be safely asleep at this hour of the night, safely unaware that he was going to die, safely unaware that Logan was going to kill him even if it was the last thing he ever did.

 

Even the doors on the fourth floor didn’t lock, under the premise that if there was an emergency they needed to be able to get in without the locks being in the way. It just made getting into the room easier. He pulled out one syringe and turned the door handle slowly, silently and pushing it inwards.

 

He opened it the bare minimum and escaped inside before more than a dash of the dull hallway light could leak in.

 

The darkness was a quiet comfort. Logan stood still as his eyes adjusted to the new surroundings. The room smelled like lemon clorox wipes, reminiscent of Logan’s childhood again. The floor was clean, the shadows long and deep and comforting. The air conditioner hummed a solemn tone that intersected with the fitful breathing coming from one of the beds--one of the two beds that both had bodies in them.

 

He crept across the floor, navigating by only the moonlight that echoed through the slit in the curtains. 

 

He twisted the syringe in his fingers, as he towered over the closest bed listening to the breathing. It was nearly non existent-- not like the bed Logan knew was Patton’s. There was nothing in the system about anyone sharing Patton’s room. 

 

But he was staring down at the unmistakable passive face of a sleeping Virgil Storm and Logan wished he had grabbed two syringes just to put two of them in the man he killed a year ago. 

 

He imagined himself putting the current syringe in his pocket and silent reaching out-- reaching out like a shadow, like a monster from under the bed-- and grabbing one of the pillows Virgil was sleeping on and twisting it over the other’s face. Logan was certain he could heave himself onto the bed straddling Virgil’s body before he could react and pinning his arms and feet to the cot as he smothered the oxygen out of Virgil’s body. He could do it right now-- get rid of the problem before he had a chance to act and then while Patton was still blissfully asleep Logan could insert the Ketamine into the IV pump he was hooked up to.

 

He could do it.

 

He should do it.

 

Logan moved slowly replacing the syringe in his coat pocket, and sliding his sleeves up. His fingers grazed over the pillow--

 

A clear rap cut through the night like a balloon popping. Impossibly, startling loud and sudden.

 

And Virgil’s eyes snapped open barely a millisecond later. 

 

Logan grabbed the pillow from under his head, but Virgil was fast-- inhumanely fast-- throwing himself upwards with one hand catching Logan’s throat and pulling him over the bed. Logan threw a foot up to catch the other’s face. Virgil hit the wall with a  _ thud,  _ his fingers tearing off Logan’s neck painfully. Logan rolled off the bed and hit the ground on his hip. The wrong hip. He felt the glass syringe in his pocket shatter.

 

The room flooded with light as the door flung open and a fourth person gracefully slid their way into the house.

 

“Oh,” the most musical, most alluring, most amazing voice Logan had ever heard, said, “Am I interrupting something?”

 

Logan scrambled to his feet facing the newest intruder, and froze assessing him: incredibly chiseled features that turned him almost mythical in the slim color of the moonlight, eyes dark and mysterious with a light in them that out shown the stars, hair that swept in to the side like a unified peaceful ocean waiting for someone to dragged their fingers through, bold shoulders that anyone (but preferably a male) would be desperate to climb as he whispered sweet nothings in their ears--

 

Ow, okay! Wrong details! I get it! Yeesh.

 

Virgil slid off his bed, opposite of Logan, placing the bed between them and himself in front of Patton. He swayed dangerously but raised his hands in a poor mockery of a fighting stance.

 

Logan rolled over himself, swinging up on one knee in a much more advanced steady stance. His eyes darted between the gorgeous newcomer and his prey. His throat burned from where Virgil’s hand had come in contact with his bare skin. The ghost of the fingers squeezed the breath from his chest and Logan found it hard to remind himself it  _ wasn’t  _ there.

 

The newcomer threw up his hands, “Easy now, I’m not here to fight. I’m sure no one wants to fight!”

 

“Who are you?” Logan peeled himself up from the his stance much like a ragdoll standing up, effortlessly, creepily in the shadows of the darkened room. He pressed glasses up his nose, in a calculated movement, his voice cold and cutting in the tense air. 

 

“What he isn’t one of your little friends?” Virgil snapped.

 

“Obviously not.” Logan sneered, “I work alone.”

 

“Hey now!” The newcomer sang, “Introductions? I’m Roman Prince. I’m a--”

 

Virgil hissed distastefully. “You’re a writer for the MIND Times. Son of the fucking CEO.” He narrowed his eyes. “Get out. Both of you.”

 

“Hold on! Hold on!” Roman said, “You don’t even know why I’m here!”

 

“I don’t care either,” Virgil snapped, “Get out before I call security.”

 

Logan thought of the dime-a-dozen cop at the ER desk. Fit, but lax. Logan had no doubt he could take any police officers that Virgil managed to call. He could take on this Roman Prince, too. But he couldn’t do it silently, and he most certainly couldn’t do it faster than it would take the City police to blockade the building. 

 

“I’m here to interview you!” Roman yelped.

 

“I definitely don’t want that.” Virgil hunched his shoulders, “Get Out!”

 

For a tense second no one moved. Logan watched both of them, his mind doing mental math calculations. He didn’t like the unknown of being so close to people, didn’t like the sudden appearance of the strangely attractive writer, didn’t like the variables that ripped through his plans.

 

Then there was another noise-- a harsh noise that made all of them freeze. A catch of breath and a ragged cough. “V-Virgil?”

 

“Right here, Pat,” Virgil said without turning around, “Go back to sleep.”

 

“What’s-” He coughed again, “What’s going on?”

 

“A reporter and a--” Virgil narrowed his eyes at Logan, “-another reporter are here. They’re leaving. Go back to sleep.” Virgil refused to back down, daring Logan to correct him, to answer the entirely false premise with a horrifying truth.

 

Patton wriggled in his bed, coughed again, and then to Logan complete befuddlement tried to sit up. The IV bag neck to him swung on its hook. He looked different in the pale light and dark shadows: a version of Patton that Logan could convince himself had done something bad enough to warrant a hit on him. Without his glasses, he peered at the two of them through squinted eyes, then a sleepy grin lit up his face.

 

“You came to see us?” Patton whispered, “That’s so nice.”

 

“ _ Pat _ ,” Virgil said in warning.

 

“I’m really t-tired,” Patton continued on with gasping breaths, “But maybe we can d-do lunch tom-morrow?”

 

“Patton!”

 

Roman clenched his fists in victory, “Yes! Perfect! I know this little sandwich shop--”

 

“No!” Virgil swore, “We are not--”

 

“I’d be delighted,” Logan said straightening the cuffs on his jacket, “There are an assortment of questions I have for you to answer.” His lips curved into a faux smile, “As I am a reporter and all.”

 

Virgil looked like he wanted to murder all of them, but Logan and him had a stare off. His desperate, wild eyes clashing with Logan’s cold, humorless ones. Logan’s hand slipped into his pocket, dancing around the shards of glass and the cold fabric of the Ketamine soaked pounch. 

 

“Of course, only if Patton is feeling up to it,” Logan added, “I wouldn’t want to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

 

“I’d love to!” Patton exclaimed, then inhaled sharply with a hand to his chest. “I love-- mak-king new friends.”

 

Virgil gritted his teeth, his purple hair hiding one of his eyes. “Fine,” He hissed after a moment, “What time?”

 

Logan failed a third time and missed his flight to his cozy little cabin in the woods, but he knew exactly where his injured prey was going to be the following day. Patton was oblivious, Virgil was going to be distracted, Roman didn’t know what was going to happen, and Logan would make his move before anyone could stop him.

 

***

 

Roman paused, glancing up at the Detective, “You said I was acquitted of  _ all  _ charges, right? Not just the murder charge?”

 

The Detective rubbed his forehead, “You said you were there to interview them. Why did you want to interview them? I thought you were there for the play.”

 

“I was!” Roman said almost offended that the other man would suggest otherwise. “Kind of? Well not really.”

 

“Care to elaborate, Mr. Prince?”

 

“I will, I will!” He promised, “Things only make sense in order! Imagine if I began talking about how I was covered in human blood when you found me! You undoubtedly wouldn’t understand anything I said!”

 

“I can still arrest you.”

 

“But you won’t.” Roman said, voice suddenly unfriendly and hard. He stared at the Detective across from him. “I’m the only one left able to tell the story.”

 

“Fine. Then tell me exactly when you realized that Logan Codex was an assassin.”

 

Roman tapped his fingers on the table, “Exactly? Eleven thirty-four in the morning the day after I met him in the hospital.” He focused on the other man, “About an hour before when we agreed to meet up for lunch.”


	4. Shifting Gears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh! I thought it was you!” Patton said happily, “We just seem to keep bumping into each other!”
> 
> Like it was a coincidence. For someone like Logan who lived in such a dangerous world, the idea of seeing someone more than twice in the span of three days was never a coincidence. It was someone watching him, someone who most likely had bad ideas, someone who was planning a hit on a target.
> 
> Becoming the best assassin had its ups and downs. But no one had come close to killing Logan yet.
> 
> “Yes,” He said, “It seems that we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regular updating schedule? Who's she? Never heard of her!
> 
> (Thank you all for being so patient while I struggle to find time to sit and write. Please accept this sixteen-ish page chapter)

Roman’s prefered sandwich shop was not ideal for an assassination. It was a small store front, with more tables than there should have been in such a small space. There was not enough room for people to be sitting in the chairs, and there was a odor in the air that Logan couldn’t quite put a name too but he didn’t like it anyway. The storefront was facing a busy street, and the foot traffic was heavy as it was near the commercial part of town. He counted three street cameras whose angles would have caught anyone fleeing the sandwich shop.

 

He checked his watch, letting out a click of his tongue at the sight of the date underneath the rhythmic moving hands the clock face. He had been given one week to orchestrate Patton Hart’s death, and between his previous three attempts he had dried up six of the seven days. Today was his last day to get paid for the assassination.

 

Logan thought that maybe he wouldn’t care if he didn’t get paid as long as he got to kill the preschool teacher in the end. His reputation was taking a hit for this mess, and it set Logan’s teeth on edge when he thought about the rumors that might pop up from this. He was even less excited by the phone call he’d surely get when his parents noticed the lack of transferred funds in their offshore account.

 

It would take at least four quick, merciless assassinations to reverse the trouble that Patton and Virgil had put him through with this. In addition to killing the two of course. 

 

He stared down at the sandwich shop from the roof of the next door building--a business office place he had managed to walk himself into with nothing more than a disgruntled scowl and a business suit. After getting past the receptionist and a few other grumpy business workers, getting on the roof had been a breeze. Logan had his scope out and focused down below, watching the crowd for the three that would be meeting up there.

 

Logan almost felt bad for Roman Prince. The man had no idea that he was about to sit down at a meeting with two walking corpses. 

 

(Although, the reporter himself was somewhat of a mystery. Logan had spent three cups of coffee and most of the morning trying to figure out why any reporter would be interested in Patton and Virgil at all. All of Roman’s past stories had been little more than glorified celebrity gossip, not individual citizens near death experiences.)

 

He spotted Roman on the street approximately thirty minutes before the time of the meet up. Logan thought he was overdressed for it: a black suit, American style that flattered his strangely well built form and a red tie that acted like a neon flashing beacon of “please shoot me!” He slipped off a pair of sunglasses as he neared the shop, stopping to talk to one of the men smoking outside it. 

 

Logan watched Roman laugh and the man offered him a cigarette. Roman took it.

 

Logan slipped into his shooting position, his arms leveling his rifle in to the familiar crook of his body. Spying through the scope, Logan could imagine himself pulling the trigger and cutting off Roman mid word. There would be nothing stopping him, nothing getting in his way, and really who would miss a nosy reporter like him?

 

A clean sweep of all witnesses who had seen him. 

 

He felt it, deep in his bones. A strange sort of urge he hadn’t felt in a long while. Even with a bustling crowd he was sure he could make the shot, and  _ why shouldn’t he? _

 

Logan blinked. Exhaled. His own breath whistled between his soft lips. The edges of a smile creeped up on him, and he lowered the scope. With his free hand he gently pressed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

 

He knew why he shouldn’t. Because it would bring the police to the area, investigators into the mix, possibly the FBI if Patton and Virgil started talking. Logan had twelve hours to silence Patton Hart and get rid of Virgil Storm. He simply didn’t have the time to make a detailed plan that would account for anything the reporter would come up with. 

 

Beyond that, Roman Prince’s death would be meaningless. It was an unnecessary slaughter, a waste of Logan’s materials, and would create more problems than clear them up. Besides, there was a high probability that Roman would write and publish about his experience of almost dying, and with his creative imagination he could probably make Logan into something scarier than he truly was. In the best scenario, the number of employers looking for him by name would increase, which meant Logan could raise his prices, which meant more to please his parents with.

 

Logan disassembled the gun and put it away efficiently, although not quickly. His mother probably would have been irritated at the extra time he spent adjusting the positioning to the parts in his bag. But then again, his mother had never needed to use a gun. She was very adept with a knife, very adept at hiding it in her pretty words.

 

Logan didn’t admire her for much, but he lamented the idea that he had never quite spent time masquerading in a personality that might be more fit for a reporter than Logan Codex actually was. 

 

He left the building ten minutes before their time to meet was. By that time Roman had finished his smoke and disappeared inside. Logan could see him talking up the man behind the counter with a smile, and the sunlight glistening through the dusty windows made him appear to be sparkling. He was unfairly good looking in any light and Logan wished desperately that he could even distantly relate. Maybe if he got down on his hands and knees and begged to know the secret of Roman’s beauty, Roman might grace him with that charming smile just once mor--

 

Ow! Hey! Doesn’t this count as Police Brutality?!

 

Fine, Fine.

 

Logan leaned against the wall across the street, checking his watch for the time. People strolled up and down the road, talking on phones, pulling young children along, carrying briefcases and hurried eating an assortment of food trunk delicacies from the lot around the corner. Logan couldn’t quite remember the last time he had eaten a hot dog, but he could honestly say he didn’t feel the rise to do it any time soon, as he watched a man inhale the sandwich in two bites.

 

Honestly, it was a bit repulsive. Logan hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon (and no, his endless cups of coffee did not count. He wasn’t that pathetic), but he still didn’t feel like there was a reason to stuff his face in such a manner. The world was not ending. At least not yet anyway.

 

Five minutes until they were supposed to meet, Logan caught sight of Patton bubbling his way down the street. He looked like he had stepped straight out of a Good Homes Magazine: a blue polo, khakis, and grey socks that fit snugly into his sandals. His normal glasses must have been broken in the incident yesterday, so he was wearing thick lenses that made his eyes look two times larger than before. A grey cardigan was tied off around his neck like a child’s cape. With his smile alone he seemed to brighten the entire street.

 

Whatever he brightened, however, immediately was overshadowed by the aura of darkness Virgil was emitting. He was dressed in the usual: heavy purple sweatshirt, black ripped skinny jeans, an dark combat boots that laced one third of the way up his calf. He was hunched over, and clearly seething, probably only a few words away from frothing at the mouth. Clearly, any and all of his attempts to stop the meeting had been overruled.

 

Logan wondered once again why Virgil had decided not to tell Patton the truth. Surely, once Patton found out that he was being targeted he would have refused to have any interaction with anyone outside of the police. Unless the purple clad young adult thought that he could protect Patton better by having him by his side, which was almost laughable.

 

Virgil might have survived an assassination at Logan’s hand once before, but the chances of it happening again were miniscule. And for him to be so bold to assume he could stand between Logan and his prey? Unparalleled. Unexcusable. It made Logan want to make Virgil watch Patton die.

 

Not that Logan would of course. It would be a waste of time and energy. It would be better to make it short and sweet than draw it out and risk corrupting the plan.

 

(Logan would also have to have a plan for this to work, for  _ anything  _ to work.)

 

He was frustrated that he couldn’t get a good shot from the roof. It meant his plan was useless, and the four after that were useless too. He scratched all of them off his mental list. He had another dose of ketamine in his supplies, but he only had enough for one person and he doubted that Virgil would allow him to get that close to Patton. He might be able to drug Patton’s drink, but there was also the presence of Roman that he had to be wary of. So drugging was out of the question. The shop was so tight and ill spaced, a stabbing would be easy to perform but an escape would be near impossible. 

 

Logan waited at the crosswalk as cars zipped along the street. Several teenagers with skateboards hovered nearby talking in Spanish. An older woman with a dog in her purse came to a pause on his other side, followed by a young woman with white cane who was arm in arm with a young man talking adminately about an experience or other. 

 

Subconsciously, Logan kept an eye on how close all of them were to him. They weren’t pressing against one another, but if Logan wanted to...he could reach out and give a bump, a tap, a shove. There wouldn’t be anyone able to stop him, and he could be gone long before anyone realized that his victim had been pushed and hadn’t just fallen.  _ If  _ they ever realized it.

 

Of course he’d have to time it right: The assisting car would have to have enough speed, enough force to end Patton completely, even if the driver slammed the brakes. He would have to have positioned himself near enough to Patton to have pushed, but far enough that Virgil wouldn’t be suspicious, nor fast enough to catch him after the fact. Roman, of course, wouldn’t know what hit him. As long as Patton was dead by the end of the day, Logan would get paid. Although he would lose his chance to remove Virgil with this plan, Logan could make him a passion project, a side hunt. Virgil could run, but Logan would find him again and finish the job he had gotten paid for a year ago.

 

Logan just had to convince the three of them to come with him outside on the street.

 

Well, Logan rationalized, he really only had to convince Roman to come outside on the street. Perhaps to visit one of the food trucks around the corner. If Roman wanted something from there, Patton wouldn’t hesitate to insist that they go, and Virgil wouldn’t have a choice but to follow. 

 

All Logan had to do was make it through a conversation.

 

He could do that. 

 

He had to do that.

 

At exactly twelve thirty exactly, Logan pushed open the door to the sandwich shop. In one hand he kept his duffle bag close, careful not to bump the table directly next to the door where several middle aged men were discussing a sports game. The shop smelled like lunch meat and spicy mustard-- neither of which made Logan particularly pleased to be there. The floor  _ looked  _ grimy: pale yellowed marble tiles that appeared as if they should have been white but hadn’t been mopped in too long. Logan could just imagine all the dirt and filth that were in this place: how many hands touched each of the chairs, how poorly the store appeared to handle the cleaning, the likelihood of rodents having made their homes in the supply closet back behind the counter. 

 

Logan picked at the skin on his wrist, gritting his teeth as he looked around for the three he was supposed to be meeting. He felt boxed in, a feeling he hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing in a very long time. Like his second years of assassination training when his mother shut him in a kid sized coffin and told him to figure a way out by himself, very long time. He hadn’t liked that lesson: it was the only one he hadn’t been able to perform, the only one that Logan had panicked during and nearly killed himself from hyperventilating. His mother had to unbury him and let him out, then a day later she stuffed him back in and told him she wouldn’t dig him up again.

 

Logan still wasn’t a fan of small spaces, but in a profession and signature like his, it hardly mattered. He was never in a tight spot like this. He never would be again, Logan swore to himself. He still had his cabin in the woods to get to, after all.

 

Finding the three of them was not hard: between Virgil’s threatening aura, Roman’s loud and boisterous personality, and Patton’s clear obliviousness to the odds the two were already at, they made up most of the noise in the tiny building. Roman had chosen a table close to the windows, but Virgil was not having any of it. 

 

“I don’t want to sit near the window!”

 

“Why, does the sun ruin your aesthetic, Tall, Dark, and Emo?” 

 

Virgil grit his teeth, his shoulders hunched almost to his ears. He looked ready to say anything just to get Roman to relent. Logan was almost amused by it, by the way Virgil was constantly checking the outside window and the roofs of the surrounding buildings like Logan would have allowed him to catch a glimpse of himself in hiding.

 

Logan squeezed his hands into fists. The handle of his duffel bag sliced at his palm, but it was more grounding than painful. He could do this. It was just lunch with a couple of targets.

 

“If it is truly that distressing to him, perhaps we can find another table?” Logan offered, and pretended he didn’t notice the way Virgil jumped, and Roman physically flinched with surprise. “Surely there are enough tables in here for that.”

 

Patton was the only one who appeared thrilled to see him. His dimples showed in his grin, the dash of freckles nearly glowing in the combined light of the shop and the sunlight. The only sign that he had been in any sort of accident was in the way his arms were wrapped over his chest protectively, and the wilted corners of his lips, that was barely hiding a frown.

 

“Oh! I thought it was you!” Patton said happily, “We just seem to keep bumping into each other!”

 

Like it was a coincidence. For someone like Logan who lived in such a dangerous world, the idea of seeing someone more than twice in the span of three days was never a coincidence. It was someone watching him, someone who most likely had bad ideas, someone who was planning a hit on a target. 

 

Becoming the best assassin had its ups and downs. But no one had come close to killing Logan yet.

 

“Yes,” He said, “It seems that we do.”

 

“I’m Patton! Patton Hart!” The man said and untangled both his hands to reach out. It took him a moment to realize that Patton had every intention of  _ hugging  _ him--

 

“Patton!” Virgil shrieked, jolting out of his statuesque silence. He lunged forward to pull the other back, at the same time Logan had been retreating as far as he could get (which was barely more than a step and a half before his duffel bag bumped a table occupied by a lovely couple arguing in what sounded like Russian. Patton’s expression twisted, and he folded his arms again, over those still tender ribs.

 

Logan could feel his pulse in his throat. He was pretty sure his hands were shaking. For a moment he was certain that there was a physical hand on his throat, and another brushing his right hand burning and slicing with precision. There was nothing there though. It was Logan’s imagination.

 

“You can’t just hug people!” Virgil said, “Not like--” He made a noise in the back of his throat and waved his hands between Logan and Patton. “You can’t!”

 

“You good, Fam?” Roman said, in that sultry, silky voice of his. Logan shot him a withering gaze, swallowing hard.

 

“Pardon?” He asked, his voice deceptively calm compared to the panic that was ebbing away at his focus.

 

“Are you good?” Roman repeated, “You looked ready to run. I don’t know but you strike me as a fight kind of guy. Not a flight.” He smiled again, like they were sharing a private joke. If they were, Logan wasn’t privy to it.

 

“Perfectly functioning,” Logan said. He brushed his unoccupied hand against his thigh, drying the clamminess. “Might we sit down?”

 

Roman laughed although Logan didn’t think he had said anything remotely funny. He made a grand gesture towards the table he had picked out. “Only the finest of dining tables in this establishment for you, my dear fellow!”

 

“This entire place is a dump,” Virgil muttered. Patton gasped and batted the others arm.

 

“Don’t listen to him Roman!” He plopped into a chair next to the window, so that the sun through the grimy windows made him look speckled. He winced at the movement though, cradling his chest. “This place-- ow-- this place is cozy!”

 

Cozy was not the word Logan would have used. Claustrophobic, maybe. Impractical or--Logan thought as he surveyed the yellowing tables and brushed a scrap of lettuce from the previous diners from the seat onto the floor-- disgusting. Had he mentioned his longing for his cabin in the woods recently? He really wanted to be at that cabin in the woods.

 

Virgil threw himself in the chair next to Patton while Roman took up the seat across from the Preschool teacher and Logan carefully balanced himself next to the reporter. His duffel bag slid easily under his feet, out of the way, but easy to grab and go should something go askew.

 

Not that he thought something was askew. His eyes drifted between Virgil and Roman. A known and an unknown. 

 

“I didn’t order for you guys,” Roman started off with a grand gesture, “But you guys can put it on my tab. I’m pretty famous here.”

 

As if waiting for that, a woman from behind the counter started hollering in a dialect of Spanish Logan didn’t quite know. It was fast, and oddly pleasing to hear, the way the syllables rolled off her tongue with no hesitation or grievance. Whatever she may have said left Roman flushed, and he shouted back a three word phrase with a hand gesture that nearly took Logan's head off.

 

“Lo Siento,” Roman huffed, “She's joking, I swear!”

 

“None of us know what she said,” Virgil deadpanned.

 

“Good! Great!” Roman said, and placed his hands on the table.

 

It appeared as if none of them exactly knew what to say next. Patton was smiling with all sunshine and rainbows and fiddling with the sleeves of his cardigan tied over his neck. Roman’s mouth kept opening and shutting as he tapped his foot on the leg of the plastic table enough so that Logan could feel it shaking. Virgil crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, folding his legs in a way that suggested he wasn’t in the mood to be getting up anytime soon.

 

“So,” Roman said, “Are you guys... hungry?”

 

“No.” Virgil said shortly.

 

Logan had never particularly ever thought of a conversation being like pulling teeth, however he could understand the ludacris metaphor now.

 

“How about you start with why you wanted to talk to us?” Virgil said, “So we can get this whole thing over with and I can go back to sleep.”

 

“You actually sleep? Sorry, I couldn’t tell from the bags under your eyes.”

 

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business.” Virgil’s tone was even, but Logan caught the way his nails bit into his arm and the dangerous flit of his eyes.

 

“Let’s not fight!” Patton jumped in, “This is a fun lunch! Between friends!”

 

The phrase sounded wrong, which Logan recognized because it  _ was  _ wrong. Even Patton’s blind optimism couldn’t blur out the hostility between Roman and Virgil, nor could it obscure the way that Virgil glared at Logan. The only friends at this table were Virgil and Patton but even that seemed inherently wrong: perhaps Virgil gave off more of a bodyguard aura that Logan was picking up on. But then again, Logan didn’t know a single thing about what being friends entailed. He’d never had one before.

 

Regardless, any dining party that consisted of one member actively biding time until he could murder another two, was not considered a “fun lunch, between friends”. Logan knew that much.

 

“Maybe we shoulder restart!” Patton suggested when no one else said anything. “Hi! I’m Patton!” He turned to face Virgil.

 

The boy in purple huffed and lasted exactly three more seconds before relenting, “Virgil.”

 

They all looked towards Logan. He found himself wishing he had a drink or something to encircle his hands around, rather than just leave them in his lap. He should give them a fake name, a name he could discard after the meeting, a name that would keep the uncrossable distance between him and the other three and the future police investigating the mysterious death.

 

He offered a rusted smile and looked Patton straight in the eyes. His mouth moved of it own accord, “Logan.”

 

Patton clapped excitedly, and winced again. Logan found it curious how quickly he seemed to forget that his excitable motions would cause him significant pain.

 

“Logan! That’s such a nice name!” He said.

 

“What about Roman? That’s a nice name, too!” Roman cried. “It happens to be mine!”

 

“Is your need to be the center of attention learned or are you just a dick?” Virgil asked.

 

“Learned, actually, from the proud institute of You’re-Just-Jealous. I graduated in the top ten percent.”

 

“Jealous? Of an ego that size? I’m surprised you fit in that chair.”

 

“I have to say it was taxing, but I knew I must, because if I had remained standing, you would have been distracted by my glorious  _ culo  _ again.” Roman grinned rather smugly at the other man, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you looking last night. And five minutes ago. You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, Dark Romeo.”

 

Based on the peaks of pink underneath the foundation on his face, Virgil was blushing. Logan found that increasingly interesting. Logan hadn’t stuck around after the agreed time and place had been established, and he hadn’t thought he had missed much. Was Virgil blushing because he found Roman attractive? 

 

Objectively, Logan could admire the passionate gaze the other held, and his build was pleasing to admire. But Logan didn’t think there was anything else about him that he could consider “attractive” least of all his butt, as suggested. He was loud and pompous in a way that clashed with Logan’s own deadly, calculated silence. 

 

It seemed only reasonable that Virgil would also find those traits irritating, or would at least put them aside in response to the threat of Logan being so close. And yet he was still sitting there, eyes widened, and his mouth tripping over fractions of syllables while Roman smiled at him like he was winning some type of game the two were playing.

 

“Oh! Logan!” Patton said suddenly, “How is your book?” 

 

“Book?” Logan repeated, while he processed exactly what his target meant. 

 

“Yeah! The one you were reading yesterday at Valerie's cafe! The cover looked so cool!” Patton said, cheerfully. Perhaps too cheerfully for someone's whose apartment blew up and dog may have died yesterday. Logan wondered if he was still on some type of medication, or if he was blissfully unaware of implications of such an explosion.

 

Perhaps Logan was thinking too much, but it made him wonder once again why someone wanted Patton dead. Over the past week Logan had gotten the impression that Patton was harmless. It wasn’t his place to ask for the “why” in this line of work, but Logan was a curious type of fellow. He could take a look at Patton’s financials and do another depth research of Patton’s character later on the plane trip out of the state.

 

“Of course,” Logan said, “I have to admit it is a rather unstimulating. I have already forgotten the main character’s name.”

 

Patton’s smile dipped into a sympathetic frown, “Oh, that’s upsetting! It looked really good. I was going to check if the library had it today and read it while I’m recovering.” He pressed a hand to his chest again, with a twisted expression. “It was  _ The Space Between the Stars,  _ right?”

 

Logan didn’t have a single clue if that was the title or not. He nodded anyway.

 

Roman’s sandwich was delivered by a girl in a jeans and a T-shirt that had the shop name in English and then in smaller font, Spanish. She blushed when Roman thanked her.

 

“Can I get the rest of you anything?” She asked, staring at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the shop.

 

“No.” Virgil said again shortly.

 

“Oooh!” Patton leaned forward, pressing his hands on the table, “Everything looks so good here! Do you guys have bananas?”

 

The girl peeked up at him and nodded.

 

“Awesome! Can I have a banana and mayo sandwich?”

 

Logan choked on his own saliva. He was pretty sure Roman fell out of his chair beside him, but Logan was all too focused on Patton’s beaming face. There was no way he had actually said that. 

 

“ _ Pardon _ ?” Logan coughed, “You want  _ what  _ on a sandwich?”

 

Virgil rubbed his temples, “Just accept it.”

 

“That’s an abomination,” Logan said.

 

“It’s really good!” Patton argued, and Logan thought just for a second he could see why someone would want him dead. 

 

_ Banana  _ and  _ Mayo.  _ The very thought made shivers run down Logan’s spine. He had tasted both items separately and could vividly remember both, separately. But together? He pressed a hand to his mouth.

 

“I gonna be sick,” Roman said, quietly.

 

Patton giggled, “Sorry!”

 

“Can I just… a coffee?” Logan asked the poor girl at their table. “You have coffee right?”

 

The waitress rushed back to the front counter like the store was on fire. She didn’t even ask if he need creamer of sugar or anything, which Logan found himself unnecessarily annoyed about. He liked his coffee black, but it still would have been nice if she had asked him. But at the same time, Logan thought he’d try to leave as soon as possible if he were her too.

 

Virgil was watching him again. Logan glanced at his watch, slightly disappointed to see it had been a mere six minutes and thirty- one, two, three seconds since they had sat down.

 

“So Roman!” Patton said to the reporter, who immediately washed the look of distress from his face, “How many languages do you speak? I know Virge speaks Latin--”

 

“Latin?” Roman interrupted, side eying the purple clad man, “Isn’t that a dead language?”

 

“Aren’t you a dead language?”

 

“See! I knew it! You’re really just a couple third graders in an oversized hoodie.”

 

“Shut up.” Virgil made a face and rolled his eyes so hard he ended up looking across the store as the workers put together Patton’s sandwich and Logan’s coffee. 

 

Roman folded his arms on the table, ignoring his own sandwich in the plastic red basket. It looked like flank steak with melted cheese, but Logan wasn’t sure. It smelled good at least. “Well,” He said, “I know Spanish pretty well, Quechua, and enough of Aymara and French to get by. I also know certain German words from this gorgeous,  _ delicious  _ traveler from--”

 

“He asked for the languages, Tamaki Suoh.” Virgil cut in, “Not your sex life.”

 

Roman grinned at him, “Aw, but then how else would you know that I’m very gay and very available? Will you be my Haruhi?”

 

“Ciao,” Virgil said standing up, but before he got more halfway out of his seat, Patton placed a hand on his arm. Virgil flopped back in the seat.

 

“Italian,” Logan noted, somewhat interested. 

 

“I spent some time that way,” Virgil said in a clipped tone. Which only served to interest Logan further because the assassin had at one point looked into Virgil’s credit history and never once had Virgil Storm left the country. 

 

“What about you, Logan?” Patton turned the conversation again.

 

“Me?” Logan repeated. He didn’t see the harm in being truthful. “I grew up speaking Korean, and learned French, Arabic, and German at a young age. I can converse in Mandarin, but not read it, and I can read Spanish but hardly speak it.”

 

“Damn,” Roman said, “And I thought I got to see the world.” He picked up half of his sandwich, “What type of prep school taught you German  _ and  _ Arabic?”

 

“I’m rather interested in what business you had in Peru,” Logan said, “Seeing as Aymara and Quechua are most prominently spoken in there.”

 

Roman’s eyes widened a fraction, just enough for Logan to note. Then that smile came back, full of genuine happiness and thrill. Logan didn’t think that expression had ever been directed at  _ him _ before. It was strange to see. 

 

“Oh look your coffee,” He said instead of answering.

 

The waitress was back with a to-go cup of coffee and a red basket of that she set down in front of Patton. Logan took a sip of the coffee she handed to him, frowning, as Patton dug into his sandwich. Even Virgil seemed unable to resist a grimace at the sight. They really put mayo on two slices of bread and cut up a banana to put in the middle. And Patton really was eating it.

 

Logan quenched the need to vomit with bitter coffee.

 

“Aren’t you hungry?” Roman asked him.

 

Logan tapped the side of the cup, “I was going to grab something from the food trucks down the block instead. Would you like to come?” He stared at Patton when he asked the question. The freckled man beamed.

 

Roman beat him to answering, “That sounds marvelo--” 

 

“Do you need something?” Virgil said suddenly. Logan had several responses ready to roll of his tongue to combat the sharpness of the other’s question. They all died in his throat when he realized that Virgil was in fact, not talking to him at all.

 

The waitress was still standing at their table, hovering, nervously. 

 

“I, uh,” She fumbled around in her pockets, “There was a man here. He asked me to give this to you--where is it, uh!” 

 

At the same time Logan felt a vibration in his back pocket. An incessant vibration-- not just a text message from his parents or a news notification. Logan kept one hand on his coffee and the other pulled out his phone to check the number.

 

It was unknown.

 

“Hello?” Logan said, standing up just a little bit away-- as far as he could get while dodging the waitress and the other tables. There was more noise suddenly in the store, too much for him to hear a soft spoken caller.

 

“I’m looking for Logan Codex,” The voice said. 

 

“This is he,” Logan said, glancing at the table. The waitress pulled out a small piece of folded paper finally and handed it over to an extremely skeptical Virgil.

 

“Excellent, I was afraid that I had received the wrong number after all this.” The voice entertained. Logan couldn’t really hear over the background chatter of the shop itself, but in comparison he couldn’t hear anything on the other side. Distance car noises? But that could have easily been on Logan’s side.

 

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage then,” Logan said, “Might I inquire who you are and how you received this number? Only three people know--”

 

“Two.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Only two now, Logan Codex.” The voice said.”Besides me, of course. Your handler was very chatty when he knew he might die, you know? So much for future jobs.”

 

That pulled Logan’s attention away from the scene of Virgil unfolding the paper. Roman’s eyes danced between the two of them, and Patton leaned over Virgil’s shoulder to read the note.

 

“What are you talking about?” Logan asked.

 

“How attached are you to Patton Hart’s bounty?”

 

“ _ What _ ?”

 

“I was wondering if you wanted to share. 70-30, to me of course, which is more than enough to live comfortably with. Especially a man like yourself living with only the bare minimum. What do you say?”

 

“I--what?” Logan repeated, because he couldn’t believe the nerve of this man-- it was most likely a man in his mid twenties, probably only a few years younger than Logan himself.  _ Share the bounty _ ? And he was suggesting that Logan wouldn’t even get the most of it! Logan squeezed the coffee in his hand. “Absolutely not!”

 

Virgil crumpled the note, in his hand and stood up, “We’re going. Now!” He grabbed Patton’s arm and hoisted him to his feet, ignoring the pained gasp from the other.

 

“Wait what?” Roman exclaimed. “We just--”

 

“Virg--il!” Patton whimpered, “Vee!”

 

“Now!” Virgil shouted. He dragged Patton between the tables. Roman, without anything else to do got up to follow them. And Logan was not about to let this moment get away from him. He grabbed his duffel bag from under his chair and charged after them, barely aware of the caller still speaking to him. 

 

“They say you’re the best, Logan.” The unknown voice said, “But I’m not convinced. I’ve been killing people a lot longer than you have. And I’m much better at it than you. They didn’t even know I existed until now after all.”

 

Logan caught up to Roman outside the store on the sidewalk. Virgil and Patton were only a little bit ahead of them and moving fast. Logan goes after them without much of a thought. Patton was being towed closer to the sidewalk. If Logan was quick enough he could shove him the rest of the way off the side and it be goodbye to him forever.

 

“I don’t like losing,” the caller said faintly in Logan’s ear, almost absentmindedly, like he was busy doing something else with his focus and rambling in the meantime. “And being number two is definitely losing. I’m going to fix that. Then I’ll finish up killing Hart for you.”

 

“Wait, what?” Logan said.

 

“Did you enjoy your last coffee ever, Logan? I made it with love.”

 

Logan had just enough time to look at his coffee, the to-go cup that the waitress gave him, enough time to see his own name written in a ridiculous loopy writing, enough time to see someone replaced the “o” with a skull.

 

Then there was four gunshots: two fires and two echoes through the buzz of the the phone in his hand. 

 

Logan lunged forward. His coffee hit the ground. His forearm slammed Patton’s back.

 

And then pain exploded in Logan’s shoulder. Red hot and violent and so suddenly jarring that Logan didn’t even feel himself hitting the ground. The noise swelled until he couldn’t hear any of it: screaming, yelling, someone-- distantly crying, and Logan only knew that none of it was him. Because he was lying there on the sidewalk dumbly staring at the wound on his arm, like he was seven years old again and his father was playing with knives and not in the mood to see Logan.

 

Distantly he knew he needed to move, to save himself, to get out of there before the caller finished the job.

 

Instead his eyes rolled up in his head and Logan’s vision went dark and the noise cut to an eternally ringing silence.

 

****

 

“What?” The Detective asks, “No witty comment?”

 

“A man just got shot, Detective,” Roman responds, “Show some sympathy.”

 

“He’s a known murderer. Have a dose of reality, Mr. Prince. Any suffering he went through was well deserved.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

The Detective taps his papers on the table: pictures of the scene from that night, pictures of Logan from around the world, pictures of Patton, Roman’s written account of what happened that night. 

 

“So, Logan Codex's fourth attempt to kill Patton Hart fails, he accidentally takes a bullet for him, and Hart decides to take him home? Like some sort of thank you?”

 

Roman laughs coldly, “Logan blew up their home, Detective. Virgil would never allow a known assassin where he was sleeping, certainly not the hotel they had booked a room in.”

 

“So what happened? He didn’t go to a hospital.” The man stops and looks at Roman. “Wait--”

 

“Don’t look so surprised, Detective.” Roman says, “You’ve seen my record. I know exactly how to take care of a bullet wound.”

 

“You knew he was an assassin!”

 

“He was a guy in pain who just nearly died,” Roman corrected. “And that was the least of his problems.”


End file.
